Stephen Dziedzic

Stephen Dziedzic is the ABC's Foreign Affairs (Asia Pacific) reporter, based in the Parliament House bureau. He covers foreign policy and Australia's relationship with countries in the Asia Pacific region. Stephen has worked for the ABC since 2007, and spent five years covering federal politics. Follow him on Twitter @stephendziedzic.

What once seemed like a mad fantasy is now a welcome reality in Vanuatu, with an Australian developed product flying necessary medicines into hard-to-reach locations where one in five children don't get all the vaccines they need.

Scott Morrison faces a huge battle to win this year's election, but before then, he'll jet off to the Pacific island nations of Vanuatu and Fiji for a state visit. And, in a small way, he'll be making history.

An Australia-based academic accuses the Chinese Government of intimidation, saying he became suspicious he was being followed in Hong Kong when a woman who was tailing him in a city mall almost followed him into a men's toilet.

Chinese officials announced they had signed "new agreements" with several Pacific Island nations at the APEC summit, but they refused to answer even basic questions about what was in them. Now the details of those deals are starting to seep out.

Only 13 per cent of Papua New Guinea's population has reliable access to power, leaving vast swathes of the country in the dark each night. But Australia will join the US, Japan and New Zealand in rolling out electricity infrastructure to improve that to 70 per cent by 2030.

It is not yet known how much US money will be pumped into the Manus base, but Vice-President Mike Pence says the Trump administration wants to "protect the sovereignty and maritime routes of Pacific Island nations".

Prime Minister Scott Morrison uses a major speech in front of regional leaders to warn the US and China against a full-blown trade war as the geopolitical contest between the two great powers intensifies.